Always One Foot On The Ground
by lts29
Summary: Edward/Leah AU, no Bella. One despondent vampire meets one temperamental werewolf.
1. Chapter 1

**This is an AU story, in which Bella will not appear. She saw no reason to move to rainy Forks to live with a father she barely knows and has thus left Edward to fend for himself. This is an Edward and Leah story. Please give it a shot, if you think you might be interested in that pairing. Believe me, I never thought I would write a story like this, so you might surprise yourself. **

**I do not own Twilight. **

The first time Edward Cullen saw Leah Clearwater she had a Forks High School freshman shoved against the side of a car and was telling the cowering blonde to "stay the fuck away from my boyfriend and stay the fuck off the rez." She had then proceeded to flip her long hair over her shoulder, accidentally-on-purpose hitting the wide-eyed girl in the face with the ends, and strode back across the parking lot to Sam Uley's waiting car. Sam had stepped out of the car, slamming the door in obvious frustration, and looked beseechingly at Leah. "Come on, Leah" was his exasperated plea but she cut him off by forcing her tongue into his mouth. His muffled sigh of annoyance just made Leah grip his long hair harder.

Edward had watched the scene play out in a state of bemusement, happy to have a new, interesting mind to peek into, at least for a little while. Edward always found it amusing to see how a couple's fantasies played out in their minds. He had learned that sexual fantasies varied as widely from person to person as any other preference and that he should never be surprised by how divergently some partners saw their future couplings.

Case in point, as Leah ground her pelvis onto Sam's quickly hardening erection, she imagined staking her claim further by stripping off their clothes and riding Sam hard and fast until he came undone by her and her alone. Sam, on the other hand, wanted Leah on her knees with her mouth around him and his hands in her hair, holding her still while he, in his own charming turn of phrase, _fucked her mouth_. It wouldn't be gentle, and it wouldn't be loving, and despite all the things he had seen, Edward was still slightly disturbed by the anger etched on Sam's face and his desire to shut Leah the hell up.

Edward was slightly puzzled at this. Leah, after all, had wanted to dominate Sam, too, so what was wrong with Sam wanting to do something similar to Leah?

The answer provided itself a moment later when Leah leaned back. He could see the adoration etched on Leah's face through Sam's mind. "I love you, baby," she crooned, running a hand down his cheek.

He huffed slightly, leaning back in to kiss her again, crushing her mouth with his, but his thoughts revealed how angry he was that she had apparently made a fool out of him. Again. _Getting tired of this cavewoman routine_, he grumbled in his mind_. _He continued to kiss her though, determined to get something out of this debacle.

The bell rang, overly loud in Edward's ears after he'd been so immersed in Sam and Leah's thoughts. Sam and Leah pulled apart, their respective fantasies stopping in their tracks. It also indicated to Edward that it was time to step out of the soap opera in the parking lot and into the monotony of high school. As he turned to start the walk inside, he paused behind a beat-up blue van to adjust his erection to a less noticeable position in his jeans. He wasn't surprised that he was hard, by any means. It had happened before, many times, and he had indulged himself, many times, often inserting himself into people's fantasies in place of the male. For the first decade or so, he had felt guilty about this self-insertion into other's fantasies, but multiple decades of doing it had deadened the impact a bit.

What caught him slightly off guard was that it was not Sam's fantasy he continued in his mind throughout most of the day, but Leah's. He suspected that a part of it was the desire to have a beautiful girl be that lovingly possessive of him, but the image of the dark-eyed, copper-skinned girl riding him into oblivion wasn't a bad one either. Although that image made it onto the short list of "go to" fantasies, he didn't think too much about Leah Clearwater and Sam Uley until several months later.

==/==/==

The first encounter with a wolf who thought in complete sentences and had memories of itself as a human had been a jarring one for Edward, and even after seventy years without a wolf-man encounter, he was still shocked by how loud the pack mind was. Especially when they were angry. It was deafening. Dealing with Ephraim, Levi and Quil had been tough, but they had seemed reasonable. This new group was unruly and it offended Edward's ordered sensibilities. He felt like such an old man at times, fondly remembering the past and reminiscing about the three wolves who had almost killed his newly-formed family without question.

He was pleased when they shifted back to human form. He could deal with individual minds much more easily than the reverberating feedback of the pack mind. They talked over each other and around each other and would pick up other wolves' thoughts and finish them or contradict them in mid-sentence. It was like being the new person in an internet chatroom. Everyone knew each other and he was the one left on the outside scratching his head. Not to mention they stank to high heaven in wolf form. The scent clung to their human forms, too, but it was not nearly as bad. Edward felt slightly vindicated knowing from their thoughts that a group of vampires didn't exactly smell appetizing to them either.

He was also confused by the power dynamic in this pack. There was a Jacob Black here, but he wasn't the one who was talking. It was Sam Uley, Levi Uley's progeny. Edward kept looking to Jacob, waiting for him to speak up as the Alpha, but then he remembered he didn't particularly care about wolf office politics. He sunk back into his role as hall monitor of the Cullen family, waiting for something more interesting than angry yelling to happen.

"How dare you let those vampires onto your land!"

Carlisle had his hands raised, trying to maintain his calm façade, but having trouble with it. "We just played baseball with them. We can't control every vampire that wanders through our land."

"You were callously endangering every man, woman and child in Forks and on the reservation."

Edward audibly heard Carlisle sigh and was amused by his thought of _hyperbole is the sport of youth_ that was accompanied with a mental head shake. Just as Carlisle opened his mouth to again try to reassure Sam that no real harm had actually come of James, Victoria and Laurent encroaching on their respective lands, Sam's thoughts flashed to an image of two ferocious werewolves, snarling and snapping at a larger group of wolves. The larger group wasn't aggressive, rather, Edward could see that there was concern and, above all, empathy in the minds of the wolves. He understood the anger of the wolves now. The presence of foreign vampires had triggered the gene in two more werewolves that had initially escaped the change precipitated by the Cullens.

Edward groaned softly, causing Carlisle to look at him questioningly, his hands still in the air. Leaning over, putting his mouth as close as possible to Carlisle's ear, he whispered, "The nomads caused the change in two more wolves. They are obviously unhappy with this development."

_A-ha. I see. This is going to be tricky. Thank you, Edward. _

"Yup." He could hear the flippancy in his voice and he could sense Carlisle's annoyance with it, but he couldn't be bothered to muster up the enthusiasm.

"Yes, we have two new wolves, thanks to your baseball buddies," Sam snarled, glaring at Edward. Seemed their hearing was just as good as a vampire's. Interesting. Edward gave Sam a cold look, shrugging his shoulders, which served to annoy Sam even further. He smiled inwardly, pleased that he had been able to get a rise out of the already stressed Sam.

_I don't think you're helping, Edward_. He looked back at Jasper, leaning casually against a tree behind them, and they shared a smirk. Jasper cared just as much as Edward did about the wolves' annoyance level. Which was to say, not at all.

"We are truly sorry about the inconvenience that dealing with new wolves must cause your pack and your tribe…"

"Inconvenience! We're not concerned with our convenience level. These are young lives we're talking about. Changed forever." _Ruined forever. _Sam mentally scolded himself for thinking that way, but it was true. It was different for him. He was the Alpha and he loved being tied to the land, but he knew it was a curse for some of the others. Edward felt the tiniest flicker of sympathy for the wolves as a pack and for the new members.

"If you had let me finish, I would have also said that I was sorry that the lives of these young men have changed in such an irrevocable way," Carlisle finished wearily. Edward could tell that Sam recognized that Carlisle was a good man and that he _was_ sincerely apologetic, but Edward was more interested by the mental flinch in Sam's mind at the mention of the word 'men.' Edward found that he suddenly got a lot more interested in the proceedings.

An image of the smaller, gray wolf from Sam's memory became clear in his mind, but it slowly dissolved into an image of Leah, looking haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and her long hair matted against her head. It was nothing like the image of Leah that Edward had held onto for so long. She had been a fierce beauty, so alive and happy in bullying that blond. He could see it now, why Sam had been so angry about this particular transformation brought on by the nomads. Despite their problems in the parking lot, Edward could tell there was mutual love between them, and he hoped that having a supportive partner would help Leah's transformation process. Edward had witnessed firsthand how having a mate present in the change to being a vampire had helped both Esme and Emmett in their transformations, resulting in much calmer, less violent newborns. Edward sincerely hoped that the same could be said of Leah with Sam by her side. His feelings of...panic and apprehension at the thought of Leah being a wolf was lessened somewhat.

_Edward_. The unique whine of his favorite sister's mental voice broke through his train of thought about Leah.

"What's wrong, Alice?"

_My head hurts. _Alice slipped underneath his arm, putting her head on his chest and he squeezed her against him, smiling down softly at her.

"Your head hurts? Is that possible?"

_I wouldn't think so, but I think it's something with the wolves. All I see is static…or something. Just nothingness, but I know there are visions there that I'm missing. It's so strange_.He could see it now, the strange emptiness in her mind where the visions should be. It was like the television was still on, but no pictures or sounds were coming out. He was getting a contact headache just listening in to it.

He petted her head softly, but forced his mind to wander to more hospitable places. Carlisle was trying to figure out the exact point of this meeting between the wolves and the Cullens and coming to the conclusion that they really just wanted an opportunity to yell at some vampires. He supposed that he couldn't fault them for that, but he had cancelled a patient's surgery this afternoon to come here, which he hated to do. His thoughts went back to the last generation of wolves that he had run across with his family and Edward felt himself smiling at their similar thoughts about this younger generation. They were exasperating, this bunch.

"Is there anything else we can do for you?" Carlisle's impatience was slightly showing in his tone, but Edward didn't think the wolves recognized it.

"No, I guess not." Sam shrugged and looked back at the two wolves behind him, Jacob and…whoever else. Edward hadn't bothered to catch his name. They shrugged their shoulders too and Sam turned back toward Carlisle. "Thank you for meeting us on such short notice."

"Not a problem at all. It was our pleasure." Carlisle smiled beneficently, but both Edward and Alice gave a derisive snort at Carlisle's less than truthful, but kindly put sentiments. They exchanged a conspiratorial look and rolled their eyes a bit at each other.

The wolves and the vampires turned their backs on each other, both groups feeling a little wary of this course of action, but realizing that it was an important step in showing trust in each other and in the treaty.

Edward turned his mind to more pleasant things, contemplating whether he should go for a run or play the piano for a while this evening. He felt Alice slip out from under his arm and scamper off to walk with Jasper.

"I couldn't see anything, Jasper."

"You couldn't?" Jasper murmured sympathetically.

"No, it's like they blocked me or something."

Alice's lower lip pouted out slightly and her forehead was creased, but her face cleared instantly at Jasper's next words. "Let's go do something more fun, then."

"Like what?" Alice asked excitedly.

"You mean you don't know what I have in mind?" Alice shook her head fiercely, looking slightly panicked at her lack of visions. They were apparently still within the wolves' range. "Well, this could be interesting. Come on."

They began to run off toward the house, Alice concentrating hard on getting her visions back and Jasper concentrating equally as hard on exactly what he was going to do to get rid of Alice's headache.

Edward shook off that image and waved a goodbye to Carlisle, who had sped off to where he had left his car on a side road. He was thinking about how he might be able to squeeze that surgery in tonight if he could make it back in time, and Edward inwardly wished him luck.

He ambled slowly back to the Cullen house, feeling no need to rush, lost in his thoughts about what had just happened. He found that his mind had quickly circled back around to Leah, but he stopped when an errant foreign image from Sam's mind floated back to him. The image of a young, but scarred Indian girl was occupying Sam's mind completely and it was clearly tinged with the love and admiration that a man typically reserved for his beloved, but the face was not Leah's. It was rounded cheeks and big doe eyes and a soft smile, nothing like the high, harsh cheekbones and flashing, dangerous eyes that Leah Clearwater possessed. _Emily_ floated through Sam's head on a silly, lovesick sigh and images of this girl waiting at home with a hot meal for him and his boys and a soft, tender kiss for him alone filled his mind.

The scene, so domestic and warm, held almost no appeal for Edward. The only warm meal he wanted was at the neck of a mountain lion and he couldn't imagine sharing a tender kiss with the little woman on the way into the kitchen. A memory, faint and nebulous, tugged at his mind and he tried to hold onto the image of his mother's green eyes dancing at the sight of his father coming home from work. He could see the similarities between the scenes, but something about the quaint hominess of the scene left him feeling hollow. He recognized it as the life he should have wanted for himself. It was the life that Carlisle and Esme had made for themselves, but when he tried to imagine himself in that same situation he felt awkward and out of place. The door on that kind of relationship, it seemed, had been shut to him at some point and he was only now realizing that this version of an idyllic life was not so ideal for him.

Jacob's thoughts, too, carried back to Edward and he could feel his rage growing inside of him. Jacob, it seemed, had new werewolf duty and he was not relishing the task of babysitting "the bitter harpy," as he had, quite ironically, bitterly dubbed her. It seemed that Leah had been making their lives living hell since she had transformed, filling their heads with the story of how Sam had left her, broken and alone, for her cousin of all people. It was clear that, on some level, Jacob felt for Leah's plight, but she was not endearing herself to anyone with her scorned woman routine. Besides, Emily was _really_ nice and always made Jacob pancakes with chocolate chips in them like she knew he liked. Edward rolled his eyes at the childish thoughts in Jacob's head.

The whole pack wanted Leah to shut up already, not blaming Sam one bit for breaking up with Leah for her cousin. The…imprinting, yes, that was the word they used, of Sam onto Emily was seen as an occasion for celebration, not a cause for derision. Breaking the heart of a young girl was of no consequence to these cretins and Edward felt the rage break in him, overpowering his usual cool manner and overwhelming his impeccable logical thinking skills. He stopped mid-stride and had a serious debate with himself about whether he should go back and teach the wolves some manners. A growl built in his chest and he heard Jasper break away from Alice and circle back around him, clearly unsure of what was causing Edward's rage, but ready to intervene if necessary.

A last image of Leah, a memory of herself in the time after Sam left her, curled in a tight ball in her room, crying her eyes out, was playing in Jacob's mind and Edward whipped around when the image was met not with sympathy or understanding, but rather disdain and irritation on Jacob's part. Jasper clamped his hand down on Edward's shoulder just as he turned to charge back after the wolves and turned him toward home.

"Whatever it is, let it go. It's not worth it to scrap with the wolves. At least not without Carlisle's permission."

Edward let himself be turned, knowing that Jasper was exactly right and grateful that he was letting him feel the rage that the wolves had produced with their opinions on Leah. He stewed in it, unhindered by any false emotion, and he let himself feel the full effect of his anger, imagining various delightful ways he could rip apart the wolves. By the time they arrived back at the house, he had worked himself up enough that he decided a good round of pounding out angry songs on the piano was appropriate.

**First things first, I need to thank giselle_lx for beta'ing this piece. It would be nowhere near as polished and well-formed without her. **

**Next chapter will be coming soon, probably sometime later this week. This story has four chapters, all already written, so not too much waiting. **

**If you have a moment, please leave me a review. I would really love to hear what you have to think about this so far. **

**Thanks so much for reading. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Don't own Twilight. **

He was hunting one day, alone, in the park behind their house, nearly a year after their conference with the wolves, thinking idly about what he should do after graduation. The Cullens were all debating this same thing, having determined that they would move away from Forks just a month after the graduation of Alice and Edward. They usually liked to stick around a little longer, but the wolf issue made leaving quickly an appealing alternative. The eternal debate between college or getting a job or traveling a little bit got old quickly for Edward, just like it always got old. He resigned himself to the fact that he would most likely do whatever Alice did, which probably meant another round of high school.

Happy to have at least put it out of his mind for a while, Edward ran after another deer, draining it quickly. He was itching to really chase something worth his time and energy. He would have to talk to Emmett about arranging a trip to Africa or something. The blood he had just consumed, however, was making it hard to think about flight arrangements. Like always, it thrummed in his veins, pounding a route that went straight to his groin. His hand went automatically to the fly of his jeans and he pressed the heel of his hand into his erection, closing his eyes when he felt the pleasure shoot through him. He hadn't masturbated in quite some time, a sibling or parent always catching him as he was leaving to go hunt alone, so he was going to relish this opportunity.

Rubbing rhythmically now, he flipped through some of his favorite mental images that he had collected over the years. The flapper girl didn't really work for him and neither did the Vargas girl. He was looking for something a bit more modern. He wasn't sure who he was kidding, really, going through these motions. He knew who he would be thinking about. It was the same person he had been thinking about for months. Leah Clearwater, but not the one in Sam and Jacob's minds, but the one from the parking lot. Young and happy, full of life and sexual vigor. The image of long legs wrapped around him and a strong hand in his hair had haunted him for months and he was looking forward to indulging himself to vivid images of Leah's black eyes looking at him with the same look of adoration and love that she had given to Sam shining in them and the imagined feel of her breasts pressed against his chest.

His mind was too far gone to stop and think about why Leah had occupied so much of his mind lately. His hand moved to the button of his jeans and he was eager to get this show on the road. His action was stopped by the sound of brush and tree limbs crashing behind him and the choppy, swirling thoughts of an incredibly angry person. He darted to the left, out of its way, immediately realizing that the person's thoughts were moving much too fast for a human. A distinctive smell was in the air, but it was one that Edward had never smelled before and couldn't recognize.

A single image of an ecstatically happy Sam Uley saying the words "Emily's pregnant" was clear in the mind of whatever was moving through the forest and he understood who it was in an instant. He saw a small, gray wolf zipping by him, and he ran after her, for reasons unknown to him. He only knew that he felt something very real for this girl and he wanted to help her. The more he listened to her mind, the clearer it became, as was typical, and he could gradually hear the other wolves' thoughts, in some cases pleading with her to come back to the reservation and in other cases abusing her for not being happy for Sam in his time of joy. Then, like a radio flicking on and a news announcer coming on, the mind of the wolves became quiet and the strange double-layered voice of the Alpha came through loud and clear.

_Everyone but Leah, phase. Now. _

It was an order and one they couldn't disobey, even if they wanted to. Their minds blinked out of Leah's consciousness, one by one, until it was just Leah and Sam alone in her head.

_Fuck off, Sam. I don't want to talk to you. Now or ever again._

Sam's temper snapped. _Do not talk to your Alpha that way_. Leah seethed for a moment and then phased into human form at the edge of a clear stream. Edward turned his back sharply, but he couldn't help that his keen eyesight had seen tantalizing glimpses of smooth, dark skin and the deep curve of her back as it dipped to her naked backside. God, he knew that'd be a sight he'd never forget. But he was a gentleman and he waited until he heard the rustle of both her shirt slipping over her head and her shorts being pulled up her long, well formed legs. No, he wasn't going to think about her or her legs like that. He turned when he heard the teeth of the zipper being hooked together. She didn't seem to notice him, the wind pushing her scent toward him. It was different than her scent as a wolf, much less powerful but still strange to his nose. He could smell the blood underneath the scent, but it wasn't appetizing in the least.

She knelt by the stream, splashing water on her face and trying to work out a way around Sam's order. _He said I couldn't _talk_ to him that way, but I can still _think_ about him that way. Stupid fucking Sam. _She argued in her head that it wasn't really her Alpha that she was talking about anyway, it was her jerk ex-boyfriend and at the thought of _ex-boyfriend_ she began to sob uncontrollably. She had moved from anger to sadness in a split second and her thoughts were filled with made up images of a glowing Emily, large with a child and the all too real memories of Sam's face beaming down at her. Edward felt like his heart was breaking right along with Leah's, the pain was so real in her mind.

The wind changed, pushing his scent toward Leah, and she swiveled around, but didn't phase. She was shaking slightly but she recognized his scent.

"Edward Cullen," she called out. "Show your face." _God, they were right. That smells awful._

Edward stepped from behind the tree he was skulking behind, his hands stuffed in his pockets, trying to show her that he had no intention of attacking her. "Show _my_ face? This isn't your land, Leah Clearwater."

"Well, now we both know that we know each other's names. Good for us." She sneered slightly, tilting her head up in defiance. "Have you been studying your 'mortal enemies' flashcards at night?"

He raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly. He was pleasantly surprised when a brief thought registering his attractiveness flashed through her mind, before it was quickly tamped down into the farthest recesses of her mind. "No, no flashcards. Just a really good memory."

"Whatever." She turned her back to him, trying to feign indifference and prove that she was unafraid of him. Her raised shoulders and the tenseness in her back gave her away. Her mind was in complete readiness to spring into wolf form and defend herself if Edward attacked and she was secretly hoping that he would make a move. She thought it would be a perfect way to take out some of her frustration, especially considering that she hadn't actually fought a single vampire yet. She was itching to test her skills and _pretty boy Cullen_ was the perfect candidate in her eyes.

Edward laughed out loud and her shoulders slumped abruptly. She had realized, as soon as she thought it, that the pretty boy Cullen standing behind her was the mind reader Cullen that they had been warned about.

_Eat shit and die, Cullen_.

He laughed even harder at that. This Leah Clearwater was a pistol and he found he liked it quite a bit.

"I thought you said I was pretty."

She turned slightly, keeping an eye on him. "No. I said you're a pretty boy. It means something completely different. And I didn't say it, you jackass, I thought it. Get out of my head."

Edward shrugged good-naturedly. "I'll still take it as a compliment. Spoken or not."

"Ugh, you would." She sneered at him, in a decidedly not good natured way.

"I would and I did."

She shrugged her shoulders, her mind turning back to the news she had heard from Embry earlier that day. She fidgeted slightly, thinking about how she wanted to burn off some of this angry energy. _I just want to run_, she was thinking so loudly. _Stupid Sam and his stupid thoughts and god, why does Emily have to be pregnant, it should be me, it should be me, it should be me_. Edward could tell she was about to lose it again. He didn't want to see that, so he blurted out the first thing he could think of.

"You like to run?"

"What?" She was beginning to sniffle and Edward really, really didn't know how to deal with tears. He had lived with three women for decades, but they never cried actual tears. His chest hurt just thinking about the sight of tears falling down Leah's face. He was sure it would be the same for any woman. Yes, he was sure of it.

He was grasping at straws. "I'm the fastest vampire in my family. Possibly the world." He gave a self-deprecating shrug. It wasn't boasting if it was the truth, right?

"The fastest in the world? Yeah right, pretty boy." _I wonder if I could beat him. Oops, he heard that. Whatever, I bet I could beat you. _

A devilish gleam was in her eye and Edward would take that over the hollow expression that was there a few minutes ago.

"I doubt it, she-beast."

"She-beast!"

"What? You can call me pretty boy but I can't call you she-beast?" She sputtered for a few moments, but she was clearly thinking that he had a good point. They stood in silence for a long moment. "Are we going to race or what?" Edward asked. He sincerely wanted to see what the she-wolf could do, but he also thought it might help her to clear her head.

_I don't know…_came the reluctant thought from Leah. He listened for a moment at her vague thoughts and it became clear to him that she was worried about the possibility that other wolves were phased at the same time and would see them together.

"You could phase really quickly. Then phase right back if anyone's there." Edward wondered, briefly, why he was in such a hurry to be helpful to Leah, but figured it was because he just wanted to see what she could do in terms of running.

Leah looked sharply at Edward, inwardly grumbling that he was right, despite her ire about having her mind read. _Okay. I'll be right back_. Leah slipped behind a tree, threatening to rip certain appendages off of him in very specific and gruesome detail if he sneaked a peek. Not wanting any part of a plan that included having his dick ripped off and shoved down his throat, he turned around, promising not to be anything other than a gentleman. Again, he could hear the rustle of clothes and then he could hear her folding them up quickly and securing them to her leg.

She phased and he could immediately hear the difference in her mind. It was very subtle and if he hadn't been listening so intently for other wolves, he might not have noticed, but it was as if the space in her mind had increased a hundredfold. It was the difference between the space in a huge, vaulted cathedral and the tiny confessional. Her human mind, like all human minds, had felt intimate and safe, but her wolf mind was large and spacious and it was clearly designed as a place where many could meet and talk. Secrets weren't meant to be kept in this space and Edward could immediately see how oppressive going against the grain could be in the pack.

Beyond that though, there were no thoughts but Leah's own and her tentative "hello?" echoed through her mind and came back on itself. Satisfied that there were no intruding wolves, she called out to Edward _hey, you ready to race?_

She stepped out from behind the tree and, for the first time, Edward was able to really examine what Leah looked like in wolf form. She was smaller than some of the other Quileute wolves, but still enormous by regular wolf standards. Her head came to about chest level and if she had stood on her back legs she would easily tower over him, but he was oddly not afraid. She would probably put up a good fight if it ever came to it, but he felt surprisingly calm looking at her. Her fur looked rough and bristly, and it was a beautiful warm gray color on top, fading to an almost pure white on the belly. The wet dog smell was present, but not terrible and besides, he could hold his breath. Her eyes were a paler shade of gray and so intelligent that he was stunned into silence for a minute.

She whined at him, confusion showing in her eyes. _Well, are we or what? _He expected anger or annoyance that he wasn't responding immediately, but underpinning her thoughts was a fear of rejection that he wasn't even sure she realized was there. She was acknowledging that she wanted to have fun and blow off some steam, but there was a fear that even _pretty boy Cullen _would reject her. He resisted the urge to reach out and pet her, realizing that that was not the kind of acceptance she was looking for. Instead, he grinned broadly at her and raised his eyebrow. He took off in the direction with the most empty land, going slowly, at first, to let Leah catch up with him, especially since she sounded pissed off that he hadn't let her get off to a fair start.

As soon as she caught up though, he really dug in, not going his absolute fastest but running at a fairly good clip and Leah was right behind him the whole way. He darted in and out of the trees, going in one direction for a while and then cutting suddenly in the opposite way. Leah would always protest in her mind, her claws cutting into the soil, but she was good natured about it, liking the challenge of chasing a vampire. Her thoughts showed her mild annoyance with him, but it was clear she was enjoying the run—she was sure that she would never be satisfied by running with the other wolves now that she had a taste of what her body could really do.

He sped ahead at one point, coming to a stop in the middle of a small clearing and deciding to have a little fun with Leah. He leapt up, grabbing a tree limb and pulling himself up several more limbs until he was a good twenty-five feet above the ground. He held very still, not breathing or moving at all and watched, amused, as Leah skidded to a halt in the clearing. _The scent, where'd the scent go? _She looked around, her chest heaving. She growled, long and low. _Pretty boy! _

She backed up, sniffing along the ground, and then went forward again, coming to the exact spot where he had leapt, sniffing up the column of air. _Pret-ty boy. Pret-ty boy_, she singsonged. She cocked her head to the side, trying to listen to the sounds to detect where he could have gone. _I won't hurt you_, she crooned softly. That was it, Edward just had to laugh and Leah snapped her head up. He jumped out of the tree, landing in front of her and pushing against her chest.

"Tag, you're it."

_Oh you're on_. Her teeth snapped at him, but he feinted away quickly, laughing at her growl. She lunged at him again, but he stayed just out of her way. He playfully pushed her snout away and he could hear her laugh in her mind. She leapt at him again and again and Edward let her get closer and closer at each pass. She was finally able to catch him and put her paws on his chest, pushing with such great force that despite Edward's best effort to stay upright, he fell to the ground.

Edward looked up at Leah, exultant in her triumph, and couldn't help but smile at the happiness that he could bring her, even if it was for a short amount of time. In her mind, she was taunting him, laughing that she had beat him.

"I let you win."

_You're such a liar, pretty boy. I beat you fair and square and you know it_. She leaned down and playfully growled in his face. Her front paws were still on his chest holding him down and her back paws were spread on either side of him, her hips on his knees, holding them down. He didn't feel threatened, exactly, but he still wasn't comfortable in this position. He was fighting all of his natural inclinations to fight the werewolf on top of him. He could tell by the strength in her arms that they would be closely matched in a fight. Like the speed, though, he thought he could still beat her if he needed, but he wouldn't relish fighting her or any other werewolf.

Just as he was contemplating pushing Leah off of him, a gruff voice rang out in her mind. _God, it sucks having to do the early patrol. _The image of a small bed in a girly bedroom and a sleeping girl named Kim was wrapped around the words as they echoed in Leah's cavernous mind, but before Edward could hear anymore, Leah spat out a quick _Oh shit!_ and phased back into her human shape.

It was an amazing thing to watch. The air around her seemed to waver, like the oily air around a particularly hot fire. The trees behind her blurred in waves and he watched, fascinated, as her gray fur shrank and sunk back into her body. He didn't know where to focus his eyes: on the snout shortening, the teeth coming together and becoming blunt, or the way that her torso became shorter and made her hips fall squarely on his pelvis. With his eyes flicking between these multiple points of interest, he almost missed the shrinking of her mind. It folded in on itself and her panicked thoughts echoed less and less, until her mind sounded warm and secure again, rather than the cold, impersonal feel that the pack mind had. Almost before he could process it, her body was human again.

She was naked, a fact that her mind did not seem to register, amid the questions of whether this Jared wolf had seen into her mind and saw her with Edward. It hurt. She was clearly ashamed of him and the brief time they had spent together and it pained him more than he thought possible. He felt sick to his stomach, which was a highly unusual feeling for him. He could barely remember being sick as a human and he had prided himself on being stoic and unflappable in his long life as a vampire.

He was so confused by the effect that this girl had on him, both emotionally and physically. For the first time in his long life, he had an erection and was in the position where a girl could feel it. He was certain it wasn't welcome. She had to feel it, right there, between her legs, nestled so perfectly that Edward felt like he might die, again, if he didn't buck his hips into her. It wasn't helped by the fact that her hands were still on his chest, holding him down, which was doing truly wonderful things to her breasts.

He tried, really tried, to stay as still as he could and continue looking at her eyes. He damned his good peripheral vision. Even looking at her face, he could see the delicate swell of her breast and the dark brown of her nipple. He had been in the heads of thousands of people as they fantasized and he had an good idea of what he wanted to do to that nipple. It was this thought that sent him over the edge, and he moved his hips, just a fraction of an inch, but enough for Leah to notice and stop her inward panic.

There was complete silence in her mind in the second and a half after she noticed her nakedness and Edward was sure that she was going to be very, very angry. Right as he was about to apologize, he noticed the quirk of her eyebrow and the hitch of her mouth into a wry smile.

"This is an interesting position we find ourselves in, pretty boy." Her voice was husky and it alone caused another slight movement of his hips. The wry smile turned into a smile filled with promises that he couldn't even imagine. No one had ever looked at him like that and he very audibly gulped.

He was pinned down, not by her arms, but by the look in her eye and her beautiful smile, because that's what Leah Clearwater was: beautiful. He slowly reached his hand up and touched her cheek as tenderly as he could. The way she flinched away from him, though, he might as well have hit her. A cascade of images fell through her mind: Sam touching her cheek as tenderly as Edward just had, the look in his eyes in the early days of their relationship, making love in a clearing on the reservation. Her emotions spiraled along with the images, but in a way that confused him. Instead of becoming sad or upset, she got really pissed off and the soft smile was replaced with a harsh line.

She smacked his hand away, barking out a short, "No."

"I'm sorry." He was sure he had just ruined any chance of…whatever might have happened between them, but he was wrong.

She leaned down, unexpectedly, and kissed him. It was hard and unloving and nothing like how he had imagined his first kiss to be, but whatever part of his brain lamented the loss of a loving first kiss was muffled by the part of his brain that quickly processed the fact that a very naked and very attractive woman was kissing him.

_If you don't want this, pretty boy, you should make that known right now. _

There wasn't a chance in hell that Edward was going to stop her. More women than he could count had been attracted to him and some had even worked up the courage to approach him, but none had sparked this kind of desire in him. From the first moment he had seen Leah, he had wanted her and he wouldn't pass up this opportunity, because he had a feeling it might be his only chance.

He reached his hands up and touched her hair, surprised by how soft it felt as it slipped through his hands. It was the straightest, shiniest dark hair he had ever seen, but it only just skimmed the top of her shoulders. He thought that Native American women normally kept their hair much longer than this and he fondly remembered Leah's long hair hitting the girl's face from the high school parking lot. He frowned at the memory, trying to figure out why she would cut it. _Ugh, not even pretty boy likes my hair short_. Just as he was about to refute this self-loathing thought, she grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, kissing her way down his chin and onto his neck and all thoughts of comforting her left his mind.

There was something about this roughness that appealed to him, something about her taking control that he never expected he would like. His virginity was about to be taken on the floor of the forest. They were both filthy, caked in dirt and he didn't care. Her lips trailed down his neck and it was at that moment he could smell her arousal. She was pressing her pelvis onto his erection, again and again, in a fast rhythm that she didn't stop for a second. Despite the years he had spent refining the careful control of his body, he was very close to coming in his pants like any other seventeen-year-old and the thought absolutely horrified him. Thinking of anything but Leah's naked breasts in his face and the extreme heat coming off of her, he gritted his teeth, determined not to embarrass himself.

Luckily, he supposed, the mental image running through Leah's mind made it very clear that slow and tender was not the plan here. One hand was already moving from his hair, across his chest and further down. She raised her hips and slid her hand down over his erection, palming it and squeezing tightly. She was strong, stronger than a human should be, but he was made of tougher stuff than almost anything in the world and her tight grip felt like heaven, even through the fabric of his pants. His feet dug into the ground, trying to get better purchase to push himself into her hand, but she had already moved it. He groaned in frustration, until he realized that she had moved it to the button of his jeans, which she deftly undid.

The zipper came down after that and her hand slipped into his pants and it was her hot skin on his cool skin and he had never felt anything so good in his life.

"Pull your pants down."

He obeyed her order immediately, pushing them down to his knees. He planned to kick his shoes off and remove all his clothes, but he was stopped when her hand came back down on his erection again. Gripping it at the base, she lowered herself onto him, letting out a long moan. _God, he feels good_. Finally, some sort of confirmation that this is what she wanted. It had been so cold and callous up to that point that he wasn't sure she had really been into it, despite the physical evidence to the contrary.

She was wet and very, very hot and it felt better than drinking the blood of humans. Maybe. Or not. He was too busy reeling from the fact that his virginity was officially gone. She stayed still for just a second and he was glad for it. He needed a moment to adjust to this feeling, but when she started to move again, he was sure that even if he had an eternity of moments, he never would have been prepared for this new feeling. She set the same rhythm as before, hard and fast, and his mind went back to that day in the parking lot and her fantasy. She had wanted this from Sam and Edward was getting the impression that Sam had never quite delivered.

He could give this to her. He could give her what she needed in a way that Sam never had and that gratified him almost more than the actual sex. Almost, but not quite. She was in control and the pace was punishing. Her eyes were closed tight and her mind was far away, not thinking of anything specific, just chasing her own orgasm. All he could do was watch the undulating motion of her body, her breasts bouncing slightly, her head tilted to the side, the look of concentration on her face. It was mesmerizing. He was doing this to her and he began to meet her downward movements with upward thrusts of his own.

_Yes, yes, yes, please _came from her mind and her words encouraged him. He moved his hands from where they had been laying limply on the ground next to him up her legs and to her hips. He gripped them tightly, driving her down on him for a few thrusts. She wrinkled her nose, quite adorably and twisted her hips away from his grip.

"No," she whined slightly.

He loosened his grip immediately and the look of concentration came back to her face and her movements began once again. Oh. She wanted complete control. Again, he could give that to her. He decided to risk touching her again, his hands settling on her waist and moving up to cup her breasts. They felt heavy in his hands and as he palmed them fully, Leah gasped and clenched around him. _Fuck. Cold. _He moved his hands away, she opened her eyes for the first time since he had entered her.

"Don't stop," she said, putting her hands on his and pulling them back to her body and leaning into him. He moved his hands back, letting the fullness fill them again, and he marveled at the way her nipples hardened against his palms. She clenched around him again, longer this time, and he had to will himself not to come right there and then. He persevered and squeezed her breasts, lightly at first, but then with more force as she responded positively. As he kneaded them and pulled on the nipples, she moved her hips faster and harder, her moans almost continuous now.

He suspected that she was close to her orgasm and he wanted to help her, but he was completely out of his depths in this department. Just as began to move his hand forward to figure out things on the fly, so to speak, she reached her own hand down, alleviating some of his stress at the thought of the potential embarrassment that would have come from his attempt. Leaning back, she put one hand on his knee to prop herself up, putting her breasts out of his reach, and she brought the other hand to where they were joined. He let his hands drop to his sides and watched, fascinated, as she rubbed herself in tight circles, all the while clenching harder and harder around him. He wasn't going to last long if she kept this up and as she came undone around him, he felt the start of his own orgasm. It hit him hard, feeling leaps and bounds better than any orgasm he had ever achieved by his own hand, and he just had to grab onto her hips and slam into her, again and again, before he stilled, coming inside of her.

She moaned as she rode out her orgasm, her mind returning to coherency and her eyes opening. The first clear thought he could read was an exclamation about how even vampire's come was cold. That made him smile and he reached up to touch her face, wanting her to look at him, instead of staring blankly into the forest above him. Catching the movement in her peripheral vision, she jerked away from him. Scrabbling to her feet, disconnecting from him in the most unceremonious way he could imagine, she started to inwardly panic.

_Shit, shit, shit. I just fucked a vampire. Oh my God, I just fucked a Cullen! _Her mind was racing and she ran, naked as the day she was born.

"Leah!" Edward, who had been lying on the forest floor, exactly where she had left him, scrambled to stand up, tugging his pants over his hips. But it was too late, she had phased and was halfway to the border line before he could even start after her.

Edward stood for a long time in the spot where they had had sex on the forest floor. He could smell the sharp scent of the crushed leaves where he had been spread out before her and the freshly churned dirt where he had dug his heels in, trying to bring her some amount of pleasure. Most of all, he could smell them, the two of them. Vampire and werewolf, Edward and Leah, not meant to be together, but mingled nonetheless in a heady mixture he would never forget.

**Please drop me a review if you have a moment. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this chapter. **


	3. Chapter 3

**I do not own Twilight. **

Edward stood in that spot for hours, trying to process what had occurred and how he felt about it, but he was frozen, one hand still on the waistband of his jeans and the other hanging limply at his side. He realized, eventually, that he had school the next day, which meant he would have to face his family very soon. Scrubbing his hand over his face and groaning slightly, he finally tore himself away from watching the spot where Leah had disappeared into the woods and started toward home.

Instead of running, he walked slowly, thinking about…it. The giant 'it' that had just happened in the woods behind his house. After one hundred and seven years, he was finally a man. Or something. He really wasn't sure what the difference was, except the area where his heart used to beat ached a little and he could still smell Leah's scent all over him.

He needlessly paused mid-step as he realized that if he could smell Leah then everyone in the Cullen home would be able to smell her too. And it wasn't just the smell of Leah, either. It was that scent that would be forever burned into his memory: the combined smell of Leah's earthy wolf scent, her arousal and his own semen. He began to panic, knowing exactly what kind of conclusions they would rightfully come to. Already cringing at the ribbing he knew he would take from Emmett, he did the only thing he could think of and made a hard left, trotting over to the shallow stream that ran through the park.

He waded right in, submerging his whole body. He stayed under the water for several minutes, rubbing at his skin and clothing, trying to remove the evidence. Somewhat satisfied, he emerged, dripping wet. Inhaling deeply through his nose, he could only smell small traces of the previous scent. Mostly though, he just smelled brackish water and the clean scent of the algae that was now clinging to his body.

He walked a little faster, again feeling no urge to run. Letting the water drip freely down his body, he mourned the loss of the scent that was the only proof of what had happened between him and Leah. He could see the house in the distance and sighed, but straightened his spine and ran the rest of the way.

"Edward's home." Alice's voice rang out across the yard, just like it always did when he was coming home. Typically, he liked this greeting call. It made him feel like a vital part of the family, like he was missed and that they were happy he was back with them, even if the absence was a short one. But today it felt like nails on a chalkboard. What was wrong with him? He loved Alice, truly. Almost as much as he loved Carlisle. Why was he slowing down then, shying away from seeing her?

_Edward? Why aren't you here yet? _Alice's now defunct vision of him arriving in the living room a minute ago played again in her mind. She idly wondered what changed, but didn't really give it much thought, her mind focused on some gossip she had heard on Facebook.

He trudged up the steps, liking the way his wet shoes squeaked on the wooden planks. He thought about jumping up to his balcony and going straight to his shower to clean the rest of the scent off, but he was stopped by the sliding of the patio door.

"Why would you do that?" She smiled, thinking cheerfully of how silly her brother could be at times.

Edward shrugged, not meeting her smile with one of his own. Alice's face slowly fell into a scowl, as visions played out too quickly for him to keep track of. Alice seemed to be able to comprehend them, though and her displeasure showed on her face. He could just catch snatches of himself, alone in his room or out in his meadow. The deep frown on his face in the visions mirrored the image of himself in the present that he saw in Alice's mind.

"What happened?" Alice looked into the woods, searching for what, he didn't know. Those woods had no answers. The answers were back on the reservation right now, doing God knows what, but he hoped they were thinking of him as much as he was thinking of them. Most of all, he hoped she didn't regret it, because he didn't. Not for one second.

He moved around Alice, into the living room. He heard the rhythmic squeak of a metal bed frame from a floor above and he knew that at least he wouldn't have to deal with Emmett and Rosalie for a while. Jasper, on the other hand, was giving him a suspicious look from the corner of his eye, but steadfastly keeping his nose in his book.

However, he apparently couldn't resist teasing Edward. _Did you jerk off in the forest again? _Edward could easily imagine Jasper's smirk, but he didn't return it, instead turning toward the staircase and taking it four steps at a time.

_Hey! _He could hear Alice calling after him in her mind, but he didn't stop. _Why are you soaking wet? What the hell is going on with you? _Edward growled softly, making it to his door and slamming and locking it, seconds before Alice followed behind him.

"Edward! Tell me what's going on. Right this minute." Alice rattled the door for a moment, thinking about how easy it would be to rip it off its hinges. _I hate having to respect people's privacy_, she thought sourly, annoyed that Carlisle and Esme had always enforced such a limiting rule.

Edward ignored her internal whining, stepping into his bathroom and looking in the mirror. He saw his golden eyes, his bronze hair, his straight, white teeth, his ghastly- pale skin, but he had a hard time connecting them into one image. He had been looking at this face for too long. What did Leah see in him? What did anyone see in him? He was weird colors on a white background. There was nothing to him but misplaced aspirations and unfulfilled promise.

He shook his head, attempting to physically shake off that train of thought. What was this girl doing to him? So he had had sex. For the first time ever. It hadn't changed him, he thought. No big deal. He hunched over the sink, closing his eyes tightly, the image of Leah riding him, her body moving over his like it was meant to be there invading his mind. Now that he could slow down the image, he could appreciate the details. The faint lines on her slim stomach, accenting the muscles there, the patch of black hair above where they had been joined, the way her broad, yet feminine shoulders flexed with every move she made. Why hadn't he touched her more? There had been so much skin available to him, but he had barely skimmed the surface. Wasted opportunities.

He was hard again, which wasn't surprising. He had a feeling he was going to be fighting his arousal tooth and nail now that he had experienced the real thing. God, how his other fantasies paled in comparison. If he hadn't felt like crying, he would have laughed. Nothing would beat Leah in the realm of fantasies again.

Alice had given up, leaving him alone for a while, but he could hear the determination to get to the bottom of this in her mind. She was kicking herself, unable to believe that she hadn't seen any visions that would indicate what had happened to him. She reviewed all the visions that she had about Edward from today, but there was nothing there to give any hints.

Edward peeled off his wet clothes, dropping them with a loud squelching sound on the tile floor and stepped into the shower, turning the hot water on full blast. It hit him icy cold at first and then it slowly started to warm up until it would have been scalding to a human.

The intense heat reminded him of being inside Leah and he groaned, too confused at the moment to want to do anything about this problem that had suddenly arisen. What had she meant? He replayed the final moments they had been together in her mind, vividly remembering the disbelief and…the disgust she had expressed about _fucking a vampire. _Even worse, the way she had grimaced at the thought of _fucking a Cullen_. She had run away so quickly after. Didn't she realize she was fucking a Cullen as she was doing it?

He had to see her again, or talk to her, or do something. He turned the water off and stepped out of the shower, rushing to dry off and put some clothes on. He grabbed his phone, but then felt like an idiot when he realized they had never gotten to the part where they exchanged numbers. He sighed, kicking himself for doing this whole thing backward. This wasn't like him. Jumping right to the sex part, without getting to know the girl first was something that the Edward Cullen he was comfortable being didn't do.

Firing up his computer, he tried to determine if he did, in fact, regret it. It almost felt like he should. It would be easy. He could chalk this up to a lapse in judgment and forget it ever happened. Move away from Forks when he graduated and never think about Leah again. He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling and began not thinking of Leah in earnest. He didn't think about running with her and he didn't think about roughhousing with her. He didn't think about how funny she was or how much he liked the way her head cocked to the side when she was patronizingly calling him _pretty boy_. He especially didn't think about her naked and he most certainly didn't think about what it had felt to be inside of her.

Okay, so not thinking about her obviously wasn't a viable option. He typed her name into a search engine, unsurprised when nothing actually related to the Leah Clearwater he knew came up. He would have to see if the Clearwaters were in the phonebook. Did they even have a phonebook? Maybe the school would have one. Resolving to go first thing in the morning to the office at school, he settled back in his chair, determined to not think about Leah's breasts for the next few hours.

==/==/==

It had required very little flirting on his part to get the phonebook from Mrs. Cope and he was easily able to find the Clearwaters listed with their number. Under the older woman's hungry gaze, he made a show of writing it down, even though he had memorized it as soon as he had seen it. The piece of paper with the number on it burned a hole in his pocket and he hated having to wait until the end of the day to call, but wait he did.

After school, he didn't even bother going into the house, running around it straight into the woods and out of his family's hearing distance. He paced back and forth several times before he punched the number into his cell phone. He held his thumb over the call button for several more moments, paced back and forth one more time and hit the button, bringing the phone up to his ear with a bravery he didn't really feel.

After three rings later, a gruff male voice came down the line. "Hello?"

"Hello, may I please speak to Leah Clearwater?"

"Um…hang on just a second." Edward could hear how young the man sounded through the roughness of his voice, estimating that he was in his teens. A brother of Leah's, perhaps? More he didn't know about her, but more he was determined to find out. The teen had put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and the sound of static being amplified by his hand meant he couldn't listen in to what was being said on the other end. He could hear a voice, or maybe two, but he wasn't sure.

The hand moved and Edward realized that he had no idea what to say to Leah when she got on the phone. He decided to just ask her how she was and go from there. Feeling better that he had some semblance of a plan of attack, he smiled into the phone, feeling very much like a teenage boy for once, excited that he was about to talk to her again.

"She's not here." It was the boy again. He could hear a door slam in the background and he winced slightly.

"I see. I apologize for taking up your time."

"Whatever, man." There was a pause. "Do you want to leave a message?"

"No, thank you. I should probably just be going. Thank you. Goodbye." Edward snapped the phone shut, feeling the casing crack slightly under his thumb.

Had she been there? Had she refused to talk to him? No, maybe that wasn't her slamming the door. Maybe it was her mom or her dad that the teenager had asked where Leah was and they had left the room and slammed the door. Walking slowly back to the house, Edward convinced himself that the teenager had been telling the truth and that Leah just hadn't been there. Taking the steps up to the house three at a time, he decided to try calling her the next day, maybe a little later than he did today, in case she had a regular after school activity that occupied her at the same time each day.

Esme was standing in the middle of the living room, dusting the ceiling fan. Edward paused for a moment, wondering if he should help her, but deciding against it. He didn't feel much like being useful today.

_Hi, Edward_, she greeted him and he could see himself in her mind's eye, trudging up the staircase. He grunted a hello out that he knew sounded much more like a grunt than a hello and he could feel her frown through her mind. _Edward, do you want to talk about it? _He considered her offer for a moment. It would be easy to pour his heart out to his mother, but he was worried he would disappoint her with his behavior and he knew that once Esme knew, everyone would know and that felt wrong somehow. The thing between Leah and himself was not fodder for family conversation. He paused at the landing on the second floor and looked down at her. He caught her eye and shook his head. She nodded, returning to her work, without giving it too much thought, chalking it up to Edward being in one of his moods.

Edward made it to his room without any interference from siblings and decided to read for the rest of the afternoon. He picked up one of his favorite books, but put it right back down. He realized he didn't want to read that. He picked up another and another, repeating the process each time. Okay, so reading wouldn't work. He flipped on his stereo, clicking through all the CDs in his changer, nixing all of them without much thought. Music seemed to be out too.

Maybe he should call Leah again. He looked at the clock and grumbled to himself when it showed that only ten minutes had gone by. He resolved to wait until tomorrow.

He sat on his couch, legs sprawled out in front of him and he didn't move until school the next day.

He went through the motions at school again, eagerly anticipating trying to call Leah that afternoon. Running into the woods, he called the number again, getting the same teenage boy.

"Is Leah there?"

"Um…" Edward could hear the phone being pulled away from his mouth and the boy whispering to someone in the background. "Er…no, she's not. She's…out." The boy sighed wearily.

"Oh, I see. Well, thank you again."

"No problem."

"Goodbye."

"Yep." Edward pulled the phone away from his hear and he could hear the boy talking to someone in the background. "I'm not an answering machine, Leah. Next time…" The phone hung up then, cutting him off from hearing anything more.

A pattern emerged after that. Every few days, he would call Leah's house, get the teenage boy, who grew angrier and angrier at Edward's calls, and, after each phone call, Edward would sink further and further into himself, spending more time away from the house, hanging around the part of the forest where he had last seen Leah and never talking to his family. The worried glances and the whispers of "do you know what's wrong with Edward?" wore him down even more. Carlisle had tried to corner him several times, but Edward always shook his head, avoiding his father's eyes and booking it back to his room before the questions in Carlisle's mind overwhelmed him. Eventually, he had stopped calling. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. Edward was a lot of things, but he wasn't insane. Or, at least, he didn't think so.

He had taken to driving around Forks, looking out for any of the wolves, wanting to see if he could harass them into thinking about Leah and give him some clues to what she was doing or thinking. Unfortunately, it looked like they had learned their lesson and were staying off Cullen land.

A month after the encounter with Leah in the woods, Edward found himself in the bathroom at Newton's Outfitters, hiding from the sun pouring in through the large windows at the front of the store, feeling annoyed with himself for having to hang out in a bathroom because he hadn't been paying enough attention. It smelled like piss and those little cake things that were supposed to make the room not smell like piss. Edward held his breath.

Edward could see the sunlight streaming in under the door and he sighed softly. He didn't even know why he had even come into Newton's. He leaned against the wall, fixing his eyes on the patch of sunlight, waiting impatiently for it to disappear behind a cloud.

_Seth is going to snap. Leah's such a fucking bitch. _

Edward growled, low and angry, the smell of two wolves in human form assaulting his nose at the same time that the negative thought about Leah assaulted his mind.

"Paul? What kind of lures did Billy need?" Edward recognized that young, but gruff voice as the teenager who answered Leah's phone. Her brother, perhaps? Seth? An inward sigh accompanied the question. _What a brilliant plan. Take the kid who just lost his dad out to do an activity that will only remind him of his dad. Smarts are not these people's strong suit. _

"I think he said he wants the kind that floats on the surface. I don't really know…" The wolf named Paul's mind wandered away from Leah onto the fishing trip they had planned with Billy and Charlie. Edward recognized the chief of police, but had never seen the man in the wheelchair. He wanted them to talk more about Leah. He didn't give a damn about fishing lures and old men.

Seth's mind seemed to be fighting itself. He was very purposefully trying not to think about a certain event, which was causing him a headache. He proved to be unsuccessful and Edward could tell from the tenor of the memory that Seth had replayed these thoughts again and again. It was a domestic scene, a shabby-looking living room, with a shimmering Leah standing in the middle of it, yelling at an unseen person. The terror that Seth felt in that moment was clear in the memory, tinging the whole scene with a darkness that Edward didn't think had been there when it had happened. In the memory still playing in Seth's mind, Sam Uley burst through the door with a shorter, older man trailing closely at his heels. Sam yelled something that Edward couldn't discern. Seth's attention had turned back to Leah, just as she phased into wolf form, her clothes shredding off of her and her increase in size knocking heavy pieces of furniture out of the way.

The older man, who now had all of Seth's attention, stood with his mouth hanging open unnaturally, before his face twisted in pain and he doubled over. Sam turned and caught him before he hit the floor and Seth could remember yelling "Dad," but the memory cut off abruptly when Paul punched him in the arm.

_Jesus, not this again_, Paul thought angrily. "Snap out of it, dude. It's not doing you any good to keep thinking about it."

"Whatever, I wasn't. How would you even know?"

"You get that dopey look on your face and you stop moving. It's like you're in a trance or something."

"No, I'm not," Seth mumbled defensively.

There was a long pause and they both returned to their own thoughts, which gave Edward a moment to process what he had just seen in Seth's mind. Leah had phased, in front of her father, causing his death. Or so it seemed through the eyes of Seth. Leah must be devastated. What had made her so angry to phase in her own home? She had been controlled with him, seeming to be past the first unruly stages of being a wolf.

He needed, more than ever, to talk to Leah, but he still didn't know how. He could only imagine the pain that she was going through, losing her dad because of her actions. What he really wanted to know was who was yelling at her and why. He felt his anger growing at the sight of Leah, angry and cornered in her own home to the point where she phased to defend herself.

"I gotta take a piss, man," Paul said.

"Yeah, I do, too."

Edward could hear the two set of footsteps walk down the aisle and approach the door to the bathroom where he was hiding. He could also hear the exact point when they realized there was a vampire in the bathroom of Newton's Outfitter's.

"Do you smell that?" Paul asked, the tension present in his voice. _This should be fun…_

"Yep. I smell it." Seth was much less excited about the prospect of dealing with a vampire at the moment.

Paul pushed the door open, slamming it against the wall. "Bloodsucker, how nice it is to see you." He paused dramatically and Edward could hear the punch line in his head before he said it. "Not."

Edward brought his hand up to his head, digging the heel of his hand into his forehead and sighing loudly.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Edward's voice was polite, but he pulled his lip in a sneer, lifting his eyebrow in challenge. Did he want to fight or did he want to try to get more out of them about Leah?

"Shut up, bloodsucker. What are you doing here?" Paul asked, his voice growling a bit at the end, which Edward couldn't help but laugh a little bit at. It was very...juvenile for his tastes.

"What am I doing here? This store sits on Cullen land, so I think the question should actually be what are you doing here?" A memory stirred at his words, reminding himself of his banter with Leah in the woods. What surprised him more was that a skewed version of the memory was playing in Paul and Seth's minds. Leah, it seemed, had told them about what had happened in the woods.

But in their memories, he wasn't the carefree playmate that he had been that day, teasing and laughing with her, instead, he was a menacing figure, bullying Leah about being on Cullen land, much as he was doing in this moment with them. He saw himself distorted and evil looking, something he was sadly used to, but hadn't seen for over seventy years. It was how he had looked to his victims in his eyes during his rebellious period. Was this how Leah saw him? Was this what she had shown the other wolves?

"We're buying fishing gear. Hardly a crime," Seth said wearily. Edward could hear the boy's uncertainty about where this confrontation was heading. Seth knew they would be in huge trouble with Sam if he found out, like he surely would, that they fought with a Cullen, especially this Cullen.

"And I'm just standing in a bathroom, waiting for the sun to go away. Hardly a crime, as you say."

Paul scoffed, rolling his eyes and moving with a quick jab step toward Edward, but cutting at the last second, stepping sideways to stand in front of the urinal. He unzipped his pants, beginning to urinate, while talking. "Are you just going to watch me piss, you freak? I hear you like wolves."

"Dude," Seth whined. "That's my sister. Let's just go."

"Yeah, Seth, and she's no better for fucking with a vampire." Paul finished up, the sound of the zipper clicking together buzzing in Edward's ears.

Edward had locked his teeth together, determined not to give anything away to these mutts. He watched the images play in Seth's head, Leah returning home that morning looking shame-faced and not wanting to talk to anyone. That hadn't been so unusual, but when she refused to be phased at the same time as the other wolves, he knew something was up. Leah never gave up an opportunity to give the pack shit about anything and everything.

Paul was thinking in a similar vein, ruminating on the fact that Leah obviously could dish it out, but sure couldn't take it when it came down to it.

_She's such a dumb cunt_.

Edward snapped. He didn't want or need to hear any more. Flying across the room before either wolf could see him, he grabbed Paul by the neck, squeezing his throat under his hand and slamming him against the wall.

"Say that again and I will rip your tongue out of your mouth," Edward growled, feeling the angry vibration coming from Paul. The young werewolf was barely holding it together and Edward could hear the internal battle waging in his mind about whether phasing in a store bathroom and breaking the treaty was worth Sam's ire. The only thing that was holding him together was Sam's explicit order as the Alpha not to go after the Cullens, but even the order wasn't strong enough to keep him human for much longer.

Seth, on the other hand, was mentally wringing his hands, worrying about Sam and the pack and humans finding out and his mother, but it was the louder than normal thought of _Leah's going to be so pissed off_ that broke Edward out of his rage. He abruptly let go of Paul's throat, causing Paul to slump down the wall before catching himself.

Leah would see this in their minds and she would be angry with him. He had just made her life harder by fighting with her pack-mates and the abuse she suffered at their hands would only increase because of his actions. Paul pushed him, not moving Edward an inch, but alerting him to the fact that he needed to get out of this bathroom as soon as possible.

A cloud cut off the streaming sunlight and Edward moved faster than normal to get out of the bathroom, bumping Seth's shoulder on the way out, leaving both werewolves shocked by his abrupt departure. He rushed by a gaping Mike Newton, not caring that he was moving too quickly.

On the way to his car, he pulled out his phone, just as Alice's name and number popped up on the screen. Hitting the red button to get rid of his sister, an action he knew would generate hours of pestering on her part later, he dialed Leah's number by memory.

It rang twice and he breathed out a sigh of relief when he heard Leah's timid "Hello?" at the end of the line.

"Leah?" He heard her breath catch and knew that she recognized his voice. Before she could hang up, Edward spoke again. "Wait. Wait just a second, please." He heard her faster than normal breathing on the other end, the only signal it seemed he would receive from her that he should continue. "I just wanted to say that…I'm sorry. For everything. The pain I've caused already, the additional grief that you are about to get thanks to me." He paused, not wanting to verbalize what he was thinking but realizing that this might be his only chance. "Most of all," he whispered, "I'm sorry that I got added to your list of regrets."

A sharp intake of breath was all that he heard before the sound of the phone being slammed down.

**Please leave a review if you feel so moved. **

**(I think I might just be being paranoid, but I do not support or condone the use of the c-word. The character Paul is calling Leah that. Not me.) **


	4. Chapter 4

**Twilight is not mine. **

Sitting to the right of Alice at Forks High School's graduation was torture for Edward. He had to be a good boy and sit for the entire two hours of the program, through the subpar singing performances and teary-eyed speeches, all next to the most persistent vampire in the western world. It was the first opportunity that Edward had allowed any of the family members to be this close for any extended period of time since Leah had run away and he felt trapped.

He supposed he couldn't blame Alice. She was worried about him. To be honest, they were all worried about him, really, but Alice was the worst, because Alice was the most curious about it. She didn't like not knowing and had been pestering him continuously, about what had happened, but had never been able to corner him for any period of time. He hadn't even bothered going back to the house after the disastrous encounter with the wolves at Newton's and his phone call to Leah, instead just showing up at school in the same outfit he had worn the day before. After a day of being mentally flogged by his siblings, he had been tempted to just leave town, but Carlisle had put a stop to that when Alice relayed that vision to him later that evening.

So now he was stuck sitting next to Alice, enduring what he knew was going to be a long and arduous ceremony full of Alice poking and prodding him for information.

_Okay, let's review. You come home, soaking wet, all though it hadn't been raining that day. You refused to answer questions and have since refused to talk to anyone, even Carlisle and Esme. There was a smell that you had tried to wash away, correct? _Alice stopped and glanced over at him. He was leaning forward, his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, looking away from her. He could hear her exasperated sigh when he didn't respond. _Fine. Let's assume there was a smell…ooh, or possibly multiple smells, that you wanted to wash off, so you stopped in stream to scrub off. Personally, I could smell hints of vegetation, some dirt, and just a whiff of animal, leading me to believe that you were hunting. But why would you want us not to know about that? Your eyes weren't red or even discolored, so obviously you didn't slip. _

The principal hadn't even finished his speech at this point. Edward sighed, fingering the garish yellow robe covering his clothes, and waiting for Alice to start back up and she did. Oh, how she did. She was relentless. She tried every angle. She was angry, then she was hurt, then she was bargaining, then she was trying to be his co-conspirator, then she was hurt again. It was tedious and annoying and Edward couldn't wait until he could get the hell out of here.

They had reached the end, though, and all the students had taken off their caps and thrown them in the air, cheering and clapping. False promises to keep in touch and awkward hugs were shared all around. He took off his own cap, staring bleakly at it, before snapping it in half. Alice had finally stopped her badgering and was gaping at him. He could see himself in her mind and he looked…lost. _Desolate _was the word that Alice couldn't get out of her head.

_Please, Edward, please. You can confide in me_.

He turned toward her and, for a brief moment, she hoped that he was finally going to crack. That thought was erased when she saw his clearly angry face.

"Give it up, Alice. It's none of your damn business and—"

_Uh-oh, pretty boy's pissed off. _

She was here. Here. In this gymnasium.

He whipped around, wildly trying to pinpoint where the thought had come from.

_Damn, he heard that. Can I get out of here? _

Under the bleachers.

He twisted and wove through the sea of graduates and their families, until he had reached the side of the bleachers that had been pulled out from the wall. She was standing there, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a loose t-shirt, her arms crossed over her chest, looking every bit as trapped as she in actuality was. The way Edward had come in was the only way underneath them, the other side extended all the way to the opposite wall.

"What are you doing here?" Edward asked in a whisper.

Leah shrugged, avoiding his eyes, her mind repeating his question again and again, obviously trying to ensure that Edward wouldn't read anything in her mind that she didn't want him to see.

"I tried to call." He mentally cringed, remembering his repeated and embarrassing attempts at contact.

"I know. I couldn't talk."

"You didn't _want_ to talk." Edward ducked his head, trying to get her to look at him, but she shifted her eyes.

_Christ almighty, even dudes with super hearing can't seem to actually listen when a woman talks. _It was the first thought that she hadn't guarded carefully since their unexpected reunion and Edward had little doubt that it was an accident. "Whether I wanted to talk to you or not, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I promised." Images of the pack, angrily growling at a defiant Leah, floated through her mind, but she quickly locked them away.

"What was that? What happened?" He shifted again, trying to make eye contact.

_I thought about us together. It was…God. It was awful._ The vulnerability in her thoughts made him want to do something, anything to comfort her, but her hunched shoulders and lack of eye contact made it clear she wanted no such comfort._ I was trying my hardest not to, but images would slip by, just little snippets. Considering the parties involved, it looked…incriminating. _

"They were angry because we…were together?" Edward asked, not quite understanding the significance of what she was trying to tell him.

_Come on, pretty boy_. _Put two and two together. What'd you _think_ it looked like to them?_

Edward understood at once, feeling simultaneously naïve and mortified. "I didn't!" he spluttered. "I—We—together- Did you tell them that I didn't…?" he trailed off, not wanting to put it into words either.

_Of course I told them! If I hadn't they would have crossed the border and attacked you and your coven. We wouldn't be standing under some bleachers at your graduation if I hadn't. _Edward could see the blush on her cheeks as she remembered the embarrassment of that moment and she cringed at her recollections of the pack's reactions. _I had to replay practically the entire thing, _she whispered in her mind, closing her eyes and trying not to think about it. He wasn't sure if she was trying to keep it from him or if she couldn't bear to remember it herself, but he was selfishly glad he didn't have to see it.

"So you had to promise not to talk to me?"

"Exactly," she said, shaking her head and moving her thoughts back to the present, determined not to show him any more. "No contact. It came very close to Sam ordering me not to contact you. Luckily, my promise was good enough. It was a promise I meant to keep too."

"You're here now. What's changed?"

Leah shrugged, glancing out at the floor of the gymnasium, and did a double-take. Edward followed her line of sight, immediately spotting what had grabbed her attention. The Cullens were standing in a group in the middle of the quickly clearing gym floor, slackjawed at the scene unfolding before them.

Edward and Leah just stared at them for a moment as they stared back. Emmett broke the silence. "So, he's been so mopey lately…because he had sex with a werewolf? Can that be right? Is that what he said?"

Rosalie snickered a little before responding. "Well, he just said that they've been 'together' but I bet in Edward's prudish mind that means sex."

"It's definitely sex. Those emotions don't lie."

Everyone nodded slowly at Jasper's words.

"He's not a virgin anymore?" Esme whispered sadly, her hands folded under her chin, an anxious expression on her face, and everyone but her and Carlisle laughed uproariously.

"Okay, everyone. That's enough." Carlisle turned toward the exit, gently pushing first Rosalie then Jasper in front of him to get the group moving. "I think they need a little privacy. Edward, we'll be back at the house. Come home…whenever you can."

Edward sighed loudly, watching his family walk out, his siblings laughing a little still and joking with each other, before turning back to Leah.

"That's your family?" she asked quietly. He nodded, giving her an apologetic look. "You didn't tell them about us?" He shook his head and Leah looked into his eyes for the first time and the pain he saw there made his heart ache. She looked tired, he realized, both physically and emotionally.

_They seem to be handling it a hell of a lot better than the pack did. _

Edward frowned. This thought wasn't accompanied by Leah's typical fire. He didn't like this new, defeated version of Leah.

Memories of being called a slut and a vampire lover came to the surface and Edward's hands clenched automatically. It became clear exactly what had defeated Leah.

"They called you that?"

_And worse_, Leah thought sadly and Edward knew from his own experience with Paul and Seth that it was the truth.

The anger rose in Edward at an alarming rate and he paced back and forth in the small space for a minute, stopping at the wall and punching it as hard as he could. The cinderblock cracked and chunks fell loudly to the floor.

"Pretty boy," Leah said plaintively. "Please." She touched his shoulder, her fingers coming to rest on the collar of his shirt. She pulled the fabric back from his neck, letting her fingers run across his skin, thoughts of how smooth it was and how to comfort him in her mind.

He turned back toward her. Distracted by her hot hand on his skin, he blurted out the question that had been festering in his mind since she had run away from him in the woods. "Why do you stay with them? Why didn't you come see me?" He hated how the sadness and desperation he had felt in her absence seeped into his voice, but he couldn't help it.

"They're my pack." Her hand fell from his neck and she stuffed it back into her jacket pocket.

"They don't appreciate you," Edward shouted, something snapping inside of him. If he was going down, he wasn't going to do it without a fight. "They don't care about you at all."

Leah again glanced sharply out at the gym floor and then turned her glare back to Edward. _Someone's going to hear us, pretty boy_. She sighed, the fire of just a moment ago gone in face of the reality of their situation. "You know I'm tied to them. I can't just leave."

"Yes you can."

"And do what exactly?" She asked snidely, the venom coming back into her voice. "Join the Cullen clan? Come enjoy a happily ever after with you and the fucking vampire Brady Bunch?"

"You've thought about it," he stated, the accusation and the hope clear in his voice.

"Of course I've thought about it. But guess what, pretty boy? It would never work!"

"You don't know that."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine, let's think about it for a second. If we do this, I would have to keep phasing, which means, no matter where we are in the world, I will always be connected to the pack's minds. I will never escape it," she said, emphasizing her point by poking him in the chest in time with the last three words.

"Maybe you can break it." He was desperate and he knew he wasn't making a very good argument, but the panic at knowing that he was about to lose her for good was making him incoherent.

She turned her back on him, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically. "Yeah, right." She huffed out a breath, blowing a piece of hair away from her face. "This is a mystical birthright we're talking about. It's not exactly canceling your cable and switching to satellite."

"Jesus, Leah, I don't know! I think it could work. We can at least give it a shot."

She was quiet for a second, her mind circling but never landing directly on what she was thinking about. When she spoke again, bitterness laced her voice. "Vampires mate for life, right? Am I your mate?"

He wanted to say yes. Yes, of course you are, he would say proudly and they could walk into the sunset, happy and together. But could he say that? Was it the truth? He wanted it to be. Things would be so much easier if she was his mate, but that feeling wasn't there. That connection that he had seen in Carlisle's mind from the very beginning, the reverence with which he held Esme, even when he thought he would never see her again. It wasn't that instantaneous and irrevocable feeling of falling that he had seen in Rosalie's mind when she had showed up on their doorstep with Emmett in her arms. Besides, Leah's mind certainly didn't carry the same adoration and wonder toward Edward that Esme and Emmett's did toward their mates. And neither of their feelings came remotely close to the depth and ferocity of love that Jasper and Alice quietly felt for each other.

"I don't know. I'm not sure." He knew he was hedging and he knew Leah could tell, but what could he say?

"It seems like it's either something you know of you don't. So what happens if you find your mate? Or what if I imprint? Then where will we be?"

He was at a loss for words. She was right. Absolutely right, so he changed the subject.

"Why did you come to my graduation?"

"I just wanted to see you. I had heard that the Cullens were leaving soon. I guess I wanted to say goodbye."

He could see from her thoughts that she never actually intended to speak to him and that she had only wanted to see him one more time before he left. There was so much sadness in her mind, both for her own situation on the reservation, but also at the thought of never seeing him again.

"We don't leave for another month. Will you think about it? Will you at least try?"

Leah shook her head no, her eyes filling with tears. Images of her fighting and arguing and pleading with Sam and dealing with the whole pack's derision were clear in her mind, and Edward knew that she was letting him see all of it to help him understand what she'd been through, how hard she had tried. She stepped forward, embracing him tightly and crying softly onto his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Leah. I'm sorry. Please don't cry."

"I'm sorry, too, pretty boy. For a lot of things." She kissed him on the mouth, hard and fast and full of all the passion they had shared in the forest. _I don't regret you_, she shouted in her mind, before pushing away from him and running out of the gym. Edward stood there dumbly, just as he had done those months ago, looking at the spot where Leah had run from him again. He touched his lips, turning in the same direction that she had just run and starting the long walk home, knowing he would be contemplating her final words, spoken and thought, for a long time.

==/==/==

Day thirty-seven of standing on the balcony was as cold and miserable as any other day in Forks, an unexpected storm marring the possibility of any summer sun that the town might have been expected to get. Edward didn't particularly care about the weather, though, instead training all of his senses on the forest stretching in front of him. He had been doing this for all thirty seven days since he had seen Leah at the graduation ceremony, waiting and diligently not getting his hopes up. It was a losing battle. His hopes were up. They were sky high, but every second was a rollercoaster of smashing them back down and having them rise back up.

His family had been gone for a week now, having resigned themselves to leaving without him. For now, at least. Eventually, someone, probably Alice, would come back to collect him, to try to convince him to give up the dream and move on. They had all been understanding, to a degree, but there was a fundamental difference of opinion, in so much as they didn't understand his attachment to a person who was not his mate. After he'd kicked a section of the balcony railing down after a conversation with Emmett, they had stopped talking to him about it.

Upon their leaving, they all came to the balcony, trying to convince him to pack quickly and join them on their drive to Alaska, but he refused. They gave him encouraging back pats and patronizing hugs and he made half-hearted promises to follow soon after.

He knew, however, that he had no intention of following unless Leah was with him, and he had a feeling they knew that too.

He had stopped jumping at every sound weeks ago, around the same time he had last changed his clothes, but a week before he last gone inside, and so when he heard a rustling in the forest in the far distance, he didn't think to hope that it was her. He still monitored it, just in case, but he figured it was just an animal. As it got closer, Edward realized that it was moving swiftly and headed directly toward the Cullen house. Now he began to hope in earnest. He leaned forward over the railing, trying to listen harder with his gift although he knew it was impossible to stretch it any further than it already went, but whether the thing moving in the forest was human or a human in wolf form, it was still too far away.

The wood of the railing cracked, all the tension he felt being channeled through his hands, but he released it when he heard the mental voice he would know anywhere.

_Please let him still be here. Please, please. Pretty boy! Can you hear me? Jesus, Leah, come on. Run faster. _

The smile on his face was so wide that it almost hurt. Leah came crashing through the growth at the edge of the backyard in wolf form, looking around wildly. She spotted him a second later and he could hear the relief in her mind, not in words, but it was as if her mind relaxed, knowing that he was there. And that wasn't the only thing about her wolf mind. It was significantly smaller, nothing like how it once had sounded. There was still slightly more room than in her human mind, but it could only mean one thing.

"You did it," he whispered, knowing she could hear him but unsure if he could trust his voice not to break if he spoke any louder. "You broke away." The ache in his chest that had been his constant companion since their encounter in the woods had transformed instantly into a bubble of happiness that made it difficult to breath.

Leah also seemed to be having trouble catching her breath, albeit for a completely different reason, but that didn't stop her from giving him crap. _That's it? That's all you have to say? Really?_

"Oh, well, of course I'm very happy to see you." He leaned forward on the railing, smiling down at her.

_Well come down and see me up close, then. _

He wouldn't say no to that offer and as he leapt over the railing, she phased into human form. He landed in front of her and swept her into his arms, all at once. They both sighed in relief. He relished the feel of her body pressed against his and he squeezed her tighter, kissing her neck and pressing his hips into hers. She moaned softly, but broke away.

"Wait."

"I'm sorry," Edward said hastily, kicking himself a little that he had given her the impression that all he wanted was sex.

"No, it's okay. I just have one question." He nodded encouragingly, loosening his arms a little around her waist but not letting go. "Did you want me to break away from the pack because you wanted me or did you want it because I was a damsel in distress that you could rescue?"

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. "Did you leave because you wanted me or did you leave because you wanted a way out?"

"Because I wanted you," she said, rolling her eyes toward the sky and smiling a little, "but not being a part of the pack is a nice perk."

"I want you, too. Very much. But even if you hadn't wanted me, I still would have wanted you to get out of there. No one should live with that treatment."

Leah hummed her assent, leaning back in to kiss him again.

This time he was the one to break away. "What happens if you imprint?"

"I don't know." She shrugged, trying to be nonchalant about it. "What happens if you find your mate?"

"I don't know." He really didn't. His mind shied away from both possibilities, her imprinting and him finding his mate. He didn't know what they had together and he didn't know how strong it was, but it was real and right in front of him. It would be a waste of eternity, waiting around for a mate that might never show up. "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he offered finally.

"And you're okay living like that?" _Really, pretty boy? _She met his eye, raising a skeptical eyebrow, but he could see the doubt in her mind.

"I'd rather be with you and worry about that, then be without you and always wonder," he said earnestly, moving his hands to rub her back lightly, relishing the opportunity that he had just gotten back to touch her skin and wanting to make the most of it.

"Okay." Leah looked into his eyes for a long time, questions and thoughts swirling too amorphously in her mind for him to hold on to any of them.

She toyed with his collar, staring at it intently. She licked her lips and he tried not to stare too hard at her face, but he couldn't help it. He wanted to memorize her every move and mannerism, to know what every twitch of her nose and wrinkle of her brow meant. Because of the intensity with which he was staring at her, he was surprised when she spoke again after a moment.

"Now what do we do?" she asked uncertainly.

"Try to live happily ever after?" he quipped, his mouth lifting into a smirk.

Leah threw her head back and laughed and he chuckled along with her, but as Edward admired the long lines of her neck and marveled at the way that his hands seemed to have been made to fit in the small of her back, it dawned on him that he hadn't really been joking at all. From the way Leah's laugh had trailed off, he was sure that she realized the truth of his statement, as well.

She moved her hands up and grabbed his collar._ Let's work on the living happily part, first, then we can worry about the ever after, okay?_ she thought, pulling him into a scorching kiss.

As the kiss heated him up from the inside, it gave him hope that they might actually be able to do both.

**This is the last chapter of Part 1 of **_**Always One Foot On The Ground**_**. I plan on a Part 2 (and possibly Part 3 and beyond) but it won't be for a while. Please keep this (or put it) on alert, if you would like more.**

**Thank you for taking a shot on Edward/Leah. I've had a blast writing them and I hope you enjoyed it, too. **

**Please leave me a review and let me know what you have to think. I'd love to hear from you. **

**My thanks once again to my beta, Giselle. **


End file.
